All the News and Events
Hyde Rugby- spend time with elementary students from Jackie Robinson Center
9/6/2010
(April 15, 2010)
16 members of the Hyde Rugby team spent what what would have been a 1/2 day off from school working with students from Jackie Robinson Center(JRC). The JRC works to educate and address the social and emotional needs of students in 1st- 6th grade who have serious emotional disabilities.
After arriving at the school, the team was escorted to the school auditorium to meet with students, show video clips of the rugby program and share our experiences. During the meeting, a student wondered how "hard" Hyde Rugby players tackle and who was the hardest tackler. This question led to a discussion about the importance of "power" in tackling but more importantly "control." This was explained as being both for the safety of the players and the outcome of the tackle.
Coach Bayer used this moment to talk about how power and control are important in daily life. To help make the connection, an analogy was used of a powerful car that could go 300MPH in 1.5 seconds but unfortunately had no steering wheel. All students agreed that it would ultimately crash. Coach Bayer asked students to think of themselves as that car with all that power and in what ways do they not have control? and what would their crash look like? One student summed it up when he said "If I don't have control over my power, someone else with power will control me." Great insight from an elementary student and "power with control" became the motto of the day.
Following the assembly, the team worked with the kids in a variety of rugby themed activities including practicing "lineouts"(see photo) and a spirited game of keep away. I am not sure who enjoyed themselves more, the JRC kids or the Hyde players! It was a great experience for our players and hopefully the JRC students as well.
At the "debrief" discussion on the bus trip back to school, Hyde players were asked to share their thoughts about the day. Comments ranged from "it was a lot of fun, to see kids excited and happy to have us there", "working with the kids was challenging and a lot of fun", "I now know how much patience it takes to work with kids, I didn't realize what we put our teachers through with our attitudes" and a reference and discussion of the movie Invictus. In the movie there is a moment when the South African rugby team works with kids from the local Township and the shared experience bonds the team together. Hyde player, Roger Lowrey felt that, like the movie, "I think it brought us together as a team and we are better for it" I think that pretty much sums the day up and we hope to return to Jackie Robinson in the near future.
.gif)
